Feature Highlighting Enhances Learning of a Complex Natural-Science Category

Autor/inn/en	Miyatsu, Toshiya; Gouravajhala, Reshma; Nosofsky, Robert M.; McDaniel, Mark A.
Titel	Feature Highlighting Enhances Learning of a Complex Natural-Science Category
Quelle	In: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45 (2019) 1, S.1-16 (16 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Miyatsu, Toshiya)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0278-7393
DOI	10.1037/xlm0000538
Schlagwörter	Undergraduate Students; Feedback (Response); Experiments; Generalization; Geology; Multimedia Instruction; Classification; Natural Sciences; Missouri (Saint Louis) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Erprobung; Historische Geologie; Multimediales Lernen; Classification system; Klassifikation; Klassifikationssystem; Naturwissenschaften
Abstract	Learning naturalistic categories, which tend to have fuzzy boundaries and vary on many dimensions, can often be harder than learning well defined categories. One method for facilitating the category learning of naturalistic stimuli may be to provide explicit feature descriptions that highlight the characteristic features of each category. Although this method is commonly used in textbooks and classrooms, theoretically it remains uncertain whether feature descriptions should advantage learning complex natural-science categories. In three experiments, participants were trained on 12 categories of rocks, either without or with a brief description highlighting key features of each category. After training, they were tested on their ability to categorize both old and new rocks from each of the categories. Providing feature descriptions as a caption under a rock image failed to improve category learning relative to providing only the rock image with its category label (Experiment 1). However, when these same feature descriptions were presented such that they were explicitly linked to the relevant parts of the rock image (feature highlighting), participants showed significantly higher performance on both immediate generalization to new rocks (Experiment 2) and generalization after a 2-day delay (Experiment 3). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01